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Views of Paulson, Summers, Rubin, Murray in a discussion about the long term finances , the stimulus, tax cuts, Lehman's collapse, at the CEO Council in November organized by WSJ. Summers put it this way "we are going to need some impetus to the economy for two to three years." Summers points to demand based stimulus as key and only middle class tax cuts helpful for demand based rebounding the economy. But with all the needs, to help financial institutions, health care coverage for 50 million uninsured, education, energy, he does not see tax cuts as the biggest priority. Summers also sees the net cost of aid to financial institutions as the right number, as investments in the finance sector should be seen as assets even if one has overpaid for a house one is living in, as compared to spending on a vacation which is money thats gone.

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Rep. Wesley Hunt is flown to Washington from campaigning in Texas to get the vote in the US House of Representatives to 215-215 on a War Powers Resolution on the president's action in Venezuela. He was driven directly to the House with escort from the Washington Dulles Airport by Capitol Police. Such is the drama in the House nowadays as Democrats look for ways to restrict the president's action in the international arena on the Monroe Doctrine. The resolution if passed would require Congress to authorize the action to deploy troops. The Venezuelan action was taken quickly in a few hours bringing Maduro to the US. The US set a naval blockade of the country which has fallen apart with high inflation and mismanagement, corruption and drug trafficking after Chavez entered Venezuelan politics with a military coup in 1998 and set up an authoritarian government. When he died the power was handed to a person who lacked experience tackling a complex oil economy and inflation reached 1000 percent destroying the economy. The Monroe doctrine had fallen into disuse since 1824 and its revival in 1904 by Teddy Roosevelt which made it difficult for the US to take action in the interests of peace and security in its neighborhood free of European colonial powers. Russia withdrew from Venezuela after the Trump administration set a new start for US Russia relations based on "respect" for Russia as a power in Northern Europe. In 1824 the situation facing Venezuela and other South American countries blocked by president Monroe was intervention by France, Spain to collect debts.  President Teddy Roosevelt affirmed the Monroe Doctrine during his term 1900-1909 to ensure fairplay, democratic governance and good governance in the western hemisphere free of European powers. In 2026 much of this is being misrepresented in a torrent of what TR called "mendacity." The issue of Greenland and security for the Eastern seaboard of America from foreign powers is also getting the same treatment by the US and European press with no mention of Admiral Perry's discoveries in Greenland for the US Navy in 1890's, and Denmark as a colonial power which had no belief in representation of local people having transferred its colonies in Asia and other parts of the world to other nations for payment or in exchange of territory. The entire population of Denmark of 6 million is smaller than the Houston area and the entire population of Greenland of 50,000 would not fill a baseball stadium, and yet it seeks to block US security for the entire eastern seaboard of  North America from foreign powers in 2026 after it did so in 1947 when Harry Truman offered $100 million for Greenland, as the Cold War intensified in Eastern Europe. ...

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Eri Machii, founded AfriMedico, a nonprofit organization designed to deliver medicine to remote regions in countries in Africa. She worked in Niger under a Japanese Overseas Cooperation Volunteers program after two years working as a pharmacist. There she learned about the dangers in Africa in remote villages where travel and delivery expenses were high and infrastructure lacking. She devised a method of Okigusuri for Africa where as in traditional Japan medicines were left in a kit in villages and people paid only for what they used. Payment is done by cell phone using the M-Pesa money transfer system. Maichii learned about okigusiri as a system used in Japan throughout its history in places where infrastructure was lacking, lack of universal health insurance, and large families living together. She found that this was true for distant villages in countries like Tanzania where she implemented the system under AfriMedico. 20 volunteers helped found the organization and Tanzania pharmacist network helped guide them in setting it up. Large amounts of medicine taken at one time reduce the cost of transport. Use of the system of medikits in urban areas helped subsidize the village use. This is a system that has great potential for medicine delivery in many parts of Africa and Asia that have the same problem of access to basic medicine kits- so that treatment can be done earlier in the process for quicker less costly recovery, improving general health conditions. One can think of Indonesia, Philippines, India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, West and East African countries as having potential for wider use of this system. As people pay for only the medicines used using cell phones the system has wide applicability from cost and access point if supported by private and governmental agencies in these countries.   ...

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Reliance's shares for its new IPO in the power sector fell 17% below the opening price of 450 ruppees. Instead of doubling as investors expected the shares closed at 372 ruppees for the power generation startup company of the Anil Ambani Reliance Group. Reliance raised $3 billion for the new company. Reliance sold 260 million shares to small retail investors for a 10.1 % stake in the company in less than 1 minute in mid Jan 2008. It closed for more than 70 times the the number of share offered. But the reliance name is no guarantee of rising share prices as new economic winds blow over Asia from the US credit and mortgage crisis, creating global effects of downturn in the economy.

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Problems with the rural development and agriculture projects conducted by USAID in Afghanistan include overspending in 2009, followed by sharp cutbacks in 2010 and 2011 as budget cuts were made. In 2009 USAID made a grant of $300 million to Arlington based International Relief and Development (IRD) to help farmers in Kandahar and Helmand improve productivity over just one year, at the insistence of Richard Holbrooke. The focus was on paying for day labor jobs to clean canals, offer subsidized seeds to encourage switching from opium poppies, distributing tractors, and building gravel roads. Because many districts of the two provinces were considered unsafe for work, much of the money was concentrated on a few districts and in one year. As a result farmers in Kandahar got more seed than they needed and they in turn sold tons of seed and tractors in Pakistan for cash. A senior program official at IRD says it wasn't realistic to pour so much money in one year. But USAID officials say overspending and poor oversight made the program seriously flawed. There was also a difference in the views of the military and USAID on the value of day jobs. The U.S. military sees this as away of protecting its efforts, of literally protecting its flanks, as this keeps unemployed youth from joining the Taliban. At the same time senior USAID officials wanted to see multiple companies bid for the next $350 millon on a follow-on project. When the USAID team of specialists again awarded it to IRD, senior offficials at USAID decided to cancel the program. The program was then redesigned in the expectation that other companies would bid for it. In the meantime USAID gave IRD 3 quarterly extensions, the last expiring June 30, 2011. The US military sees the day labor program as crucial for its military efforts, so there is kind of an impasse with USAID reluctantly giving in. IRD meantime is shutting down activites in Helmand and will do this also in Kandahar probably by the end of May, as its contract has not been renewed because of problems with the program. USAID has a high staff turnover rate of 85% a year in Kabul which complicates things with the shifting priorities of different officials. Some programs are being scaled back- a job retraining program seen as requiring $125 million over 18 months is being scaled back to $40 million. Others such as a USAID project for coordinating disparate rural rehabilitation projects for $140 million is held back because of lack of agreement with the Afghan government about how it should proceed. In parts of Kandahar USAID had found several contractors doing the same work. See the groups on Dexter Filkins, and on Commander Adams, which touch on serious development issues and the war....

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Europe has something that is just as bad as subprime mortgages that have troubled the US, its the bad debt of European banks to Eastern European emerging market countries. This plus the high indebtedness of companies in Western Europe is creating serious problems for the economies of western Europe. In addition to the property bubble in Ireland, the UK and Spain, Germany is facing falling demand for its exports as a result of the steep descent of the global economy, especially China. As a result of all this the EU is facing a problem of the magnitude of that faced by the US, if not worse. In much of Europe especially in Germany and the Eastern European countries what generates growth and jobs is exports. Three quarters of the cars made in Germany are exported, and many of the parts used in BMW's and VW's come from plants in the eastern european countries, some form Slovakia, Poland and from plants elsewhere in Eastern Europe. With the collapse of some Eastern European economies and serious problems in others these markets are shrinking. The same thing is happening to exports from Eastern European countries where factories there manufacturing goods for Western Europe are closing. And banks in the western European economies like UniCredit Group of Italy, Germany's Commerzbank, and Belgium's KBC Group have large loans outstanding in the eastern European countries to companies and consumers. And some of these countries have run up huge current account deficits. Bulgaria the deficit is 20% of GDP. Increasing the risk and hitting consumers in the east is that banks issued low rate mortgages and other laons in euros and swiss francs. With the Hungarian forint, Romanian leu, and other weaker currencies seeing big drops, the cost of repaying these loans has jumped. Instead of consumers being overstretched from overspending as in the USA, or facing foreclosures, these consumers are facing huge loan repayment problems from borrowing in other currencies. Morgan Stanley says more than half of the private debt in Hungary, Romania, and Bulgaria is in foreign currency. And customers in Eastern European countries owe foreign banks loans equal to one third of their combined GDP, according to the Bank of Internatonal Settlements. A lot of these loans could end up turning into bad debt if the economies of Eastern Europe deteriorate further as consumers there pull back, factories close and job losses mount, and currency values drop even more. This would create huge problems for Western European banks and restrict lending in Western Europe as these banks make fewer loans creating more problems for Western European economies, in the same manner as ricotcheting effects have done in the USA....

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Germany will give 16 state authorites 2.5 billion euros to support a6 euro monthly rail pass that can take you to anywhere in Germany for a month. About 7 million tickets have already been sold. Deutsche Bahn is operating at 80% of capacity at this time. Inflation is up 7.9% in Germany last month and this is a result of the war in Ukraine.

In other aid the German government has given-

Cutting the fuel tax by 30 cents a litre for gasoline to keep prices below 2 euros.

Those in work will get a one time 300 euros energy rebate for energy costs in autumn.

A 100 euros child benefit bonus per child.

People on other welfare benefits will also receive 100 euros.

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Caixabank based in Barcelona, Spain's third largest bank, says it has set aside 960 million euros as provision for expected real estate loan losses in 2012, up from 373 million euros in 2011. This was required under new rules set by the Spanish government. Most of the earnings in this quarter were set aside as provisioning for losses, with net profit down to 48 million euros from 300 million euros the prior year quarter.

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This editorial in WSJ says the lesson for Airbus after failed bids to get U.S. government contracts was that public perception about EADS Airbus as a European manufacturer affected its prospects. The selection of Alabama for the $600 million plant shows the attractions of that state as a right-to-work state that offered the right incentives, not just for Airbus but also for Mercedes and Toyota which have manufacturing plants in the state.

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This WSJ editorial points out that the current corruption drive in China is opaque and politically driven. Transparency International in its Corruption Perceptions Index shows China at 36 points having dropped by 20 places because of the lack of transparency in tackling corruption. Whistleblower protection should be part of an effecive drive says Transparency International. Also needed is an independent judiciary, free speech and the rule of law, institutions China has still to develop.

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House Ways and Means Committee chairman Dave Camp says the implicit subsidy on "too big to fail" financial firms needs to be addressed. His proposal is for a quarterly tax of 0.035% on assets over $500 billion. The tax would raise tax revenues of $86.4 billion over 10 years. The tax does not go into some bailout fund, which is one reason it does not address the problem adequately, says the WSJ.

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Manish Sabharwal writes in the Indian Express that India missed it economic tryst with destiny and economic freedom for its citizens in 1947 and the decades after that. Today with AtmanNirbhar Bharat, he says,  the country is finally making its economic tryst with destiny. It is about self-reliance, yet it is also about opening up to new supply chains set up by allies U.S., France and Japan, South Korea, opening up to trade, investment and technology flows in new and exciting ways. The prime minister's message called for a quantum leap in technology. India was already moving up in GDP terms and set to surpass both Japan and Germany to become the largest after the U.S. and China in GDP. But there was something missing in it for the people. Here he sets out what the huge investment of 10% of GDP and the possible sequel investment to this would mean for people of India, from farmers to workers in different sectors of the economy, including the informal economy. India has fallen behind in per capita GDP and this is now the focus of the people and the government, federal government and the states, to build an economy that provides the best opportunities and growth for all its people. True Gandhian Swa-raj in the best sense of the term.   ...

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The Irish prime minister Varadkar says it is time to move on. When he assumed office he was the first from an ethnic minority background to lead Ireland, the son of an Irish mother and an Indian immigrant father. He took Ireland through the crises of coronavirus pandemic, Brexit, and improved unemployment and budget shortfalls. Recently he accepted defeat on a referendum intended to remove language in the Irish Constitution on a clause about "a woman's life within the home." Disagreements over the language of the referendum led to its not getting approved on International Women's Day by about 70% of the vote with 44% of people voting. It suggest there was no enthusiasm and its relevance at this time was not understood. It is not clear why there was a need for this referendum in the first place to remove one text of the constitution that respects the role of family and mother's contributions in the home. During the pandemic for instance women played a major role, and sometimes took on a greater share of the burden. Efforts to have women's participation as shown in Japan and India does not require constitutional wording to be changed. Japan has done remarkably well and India is about to do this. And removing the wording about women's role at home, instead of encouraging or adding wording about women actively participating in the workforce and actions to make that possible, accomplishes little. Coupling this with a wording that includes gay families in the definition of family while removing the role of women in the family language seemed to be making changes that had little to do with each other. ...

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There appears to be a conscious deliberate decision by the Chinese government and policymakers to shift the economy from low-end technologically unsophisticated and polluting industry, that pays low wages with little worker protections, towards technologically sophisticated, environment respecting, and higher wage industry. This does not mean textiles are out, but textile companies that are larger better managed, able to introduce newer technologies and produce higher quality product- that command higher prices in the world market and therefore also able to sustain decent wages and worker protection- are in. Phasing out the smaller shops and the poorly run or deliberately polluting and labor exploiting companies run from Hong Kong or elsewhere. The general shift is to be a leader in products which are value added either by technology or human capital, such as better trained more knowledgeable workers. This is similiar to the shift Japan made after the sixties, as it moved from a rural to a urbanized society and textile companies like Kanebo became technologically sophisticated, while small shops withered out, and Japan gradually shifted into automobiles, electronics and chip making. The noticeable difference is that Japan with a prewar industrial base and a smaller market protected its home market for Japanese companies, whereas China lacking this prewar industrial base let foreign investment and companies overseas bring in equipment and use low cost Chinese labor to supply western markets. And it turned a blind eye to labor protections, at least till it had built up its own industrial base and knowhow with policy requiring Chinese partners in industry and technology transfer. Economic winds are also doing the job. Inflation, Chinese goods prices increased by 4.6% in May according to the U.S. Commerce Department. This is a result of the Chinese government requiring worker protections and decent wages and stricter pollution enforcement resulting in increased energy costs. For years the U.S. and other countries depended on China for low cost goods and the demand for low cost goods depressed margins which resulted in legitmate costs such as pollution control technology, worker protection and decent wages, being ignored. China is now left with heavy environmental cleanup costs, and a bad image internationally as a heavy polluter. The huge external trade surpluses China has built up exceeding a trillion dollars have pushed up the value of the yuan making Chinese goods costlier in world markets, and apparel and shoe makers in developed countries seeing Vietnam as a better lowcost alternative. The story of this phase of Chinese industrial development can be seen in a town like Honghe, a 90 minute drive from Shanghai, which has half of its 100,000 residents working in 100 factories and 8000 shops that knit, dye, package and ship some 200 million sweaters a year, bringing in according to local government estimates $650 million a year. Now many of these shops are idle and mirant workers are returning home. To see the subtler signs of the Chinese policymakers hand note that even visa policies have been tightened to make it harder for foreign buyers to visit Chineses factories and trade shows. Also the Chinese government has raised the minimum age for workers in these factories from 16 to age 18 and so on. And the impact is being felt in places like Honghe near Shanghai, Shengzhou another city near Shanghai which makes one third of the world's neckties, and in Dongguan in Guangdong where its toy, shoes shops close. The change also shows how quickly things can change in the world economy. Only 3 years earlier in 2005, Jiaxing Yishangmei Fashion Company, a family owned company was booming and had just landed Walmart Stores as a customer. Now Walmart no longer sources from this company. Analysts say that the Chinese sweater industry was probably overbuilt, with about 6 cities in China claiming to produce more than 100 million sweaters annually. A wave of consolidation could boost efficiency, and bring pressures to innovate rater than compete only on price. And many Chinese economists, and policymakers think China has relied too much on cost-cutting and simple production models to increase exports. A researcher at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences thinks such a high dependence on foreign trade is not good for China. For the US and Japan this researcher says that trade is equivalent to 20% of gross national product and by contrast for China trade is equivalent to an extreme of 75% of GNP. ...

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How information generated by Tesco's Clubcards can be used through rigorous information collection, analysis of mounds of data by computers based on a clear structure for the information and what they are looking for. And how the information insights can be used to quickly take action in what to stock and who to target with what is stocked through direct mail and coupons. Tesco uses information about what interests customers, who they are, for example: child care providing fathers who might want the beer as well as the baby stuff, South Asians in immigrant heavy communities in the U.K. tracking what they buy, and don't buy and where. 1. This information driven strategy of Tesco has been copied by other retailers. P&G, Coca Cola, Kimberly Clark and other consumer product companies buy analyses based on Tesco data. 2. This strategy has helped Tesco battle Walmart overseas. Walmart failed in the S. Korean market after 8 years selling its 16 outlets to a local competitor, while Tesco has 39 stores in S. Korea that are doing well. Tesco is also doing well in Central Europe where Walmart intends to open stores. In the UK which accounts for 45% of Walmart's international sales and 10% of its overall sales, Walmart's share of the British market is 16% for groceries compared to 31% for Tesco. Walmart entered the British market in 1999 through the acquisition of the Asda chain of stores. Tesco is growing and doing much better than Walmart in the UK. 3. Tesco's Clubcard based information driven strategy- 3-1. Uses a outside provider that is excellent in its field, can pioneer techniques that will work with Tesco strategy, and has the energy and dedication. Tesco uses Dunnhumby, a husband-wife consultancy that also works with Kroger in the US running its loyalty card program and analyzing customer data. The research firm is now majority owned by Tesco. 3-2 How it works. Each week Dunnhumby receives data on 15 million shopping baskets. Each product is scored on 50 dimensions such as price and the size of the package. The computer looks for customers whose shopping baskets have similiar combinations of scores. Dunnhumby has made 6 segments for Tesco. Finer Foods segment is made up of affluent time strapped customers who go upscale and Traditional segment comprises homemakers who buy ingredients to cook meals from scratch. 3-3 The clubcard works as follows. Introduced in 1995 by Mr Leahy, now CEO, the application asks for information about dietary preferences, size of household, ages of children . The plastic a card in the mail gives customers a point for every pound they spend after they reach $280. Each point is a penny off future purchases and it also can be converted into miles in frequentflier programs In addition large spenders get discount coupons every 3 months on particular products keyed to their buying profile in the database. Quarterly coupon package from Tesco would include 3 coupons for stuff they regularly buy and 3 for stuff Tesco would like them to try. While only 1-2% of coupons ever get redeemed about 15-20% of Tesco coupons get redeemed. The package also includes vouchers through which members can redeem points. $300 of purchases would generate a voucher for $3.00 off any purchase. Karen Masek, an actor and mother of two in London, says Tesco's mailings reflect her preference for fresh produce, environment-friendly cleaning products and organic meat. She says Tesco knows her buying habits and never sends anything that is way off the mark. 3-4 The way Tesco battled successfully with Walmart: Tesco searched its database and identified shoppers who buy the cheapest items available. About 300 items were identified for price conscious customers. Tesco lowered prices on these items such as Tesco Value Brand margarine so that these buyers would not defect to Walmart. 3-5 Examples of how the computer data is used. 1n 2001 Kimberly Clark introduced a premium version of its Andrex toilet paper in the UK infused with aloe vera. Through the Clubcard research data one could track who was buying this toilet paper and how consistently, and later tracked what other products these buyers were buying so that they could be targeted with incentives. It was found that they bought skincare products so Kimberly Clark sent direct mail to 500,000 customers offering free beauty treatments for purchasing the toilet paper twice....

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As Turkey's trade ties with the other countries in the Middle East and Asia increase there is less support for joining the European Union. In 2004 12.5% of Turkey's exports went to the Middle East, today this is up to 20%. This figure is expected to increase after the Arab Spring and new economic opportunities in the region, according to one business group leader. Turkey's exports to Europe in 2010 were about 56%. As Cyprus takes the rotating presidency of the European Union in July 2012, Turkey plans to boycott the presidency and freeze negotiations. In 1974 Turkey invaded Cyprus and set up a rival government in the Turkish part of Cyprus. The talks may be abandoned if no progress is made by 2014, according to Turkish officials. Turkish public opinion is also shifting away from favoring joining the EU. Surveys by the German Marshall Fund show 38% of Turks saw membership as a good thing in 2010, compared to 73% in 2004.

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The climate change bill that passed the House 219 to 212. When the program begins in 2012 the estimated prie of apermit to emit aton of carbon dioxide will be about $13. This is projected to rise steadily as emission limits come down, but there is aprovision to prevent a surge in costs. In the early years of the program amajority of permits will be given out free to keep costs down. The Congressional Budget Office estimate is that an average American household will pay $175 ayear more in energy costs by 2020 as aresult of this bill, while the poorst households will recveive a rebate to lower their energy costs by $40. WHile the bill has been watered down form its original, the fact remains that this is the first climate change bill America has passed in decades. It is welcomed by Chancellor Merkel and the Germans who want to see the USA as akey negotiator in future talk on global warming.

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How the peg to the dollar creates two major problems for the Gulf countries, Qatar, United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia. First it means higher inflation in these countries, with double digit inflation in Qatar and the Emirates, and 5% in Saudi Arabia. Second it means policy inflexibility, monetary policy should be tightened when the Fed is easing. Monentary expansion is as much as 15 to 40% in the Gulf countries. There are 2 option one is a revaluation at a much higher exchange rate but this does not solve the problem of monetary inflexibility. The other is to peg to a basket of currencies including euro and dollar just as Kuwait has done. A shift to a peg to a basket of currencies would lead to diversification with these countries holding fewer dollars and would hurt the dollar. Saudi Arabia is reluctant to go with a different peg considering the dollars precarious situation but other Gulf countries may follow Kuwait.

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What is the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt and what does it mean for the US in the current protests? The Muslim Brotherhood was started in Egypt in 1928, in the colonial days, by an imam and schoolteacher named Hassan al-Banna. The intent was to act as a grassroots organization to promote the reform of Egyptian society through a greater adherence to Islam, by preaching and social services. Scott Shane talks with Reidel of the Brookings Institution and Shadi Hamid, director of research at the Brookings Quatar Center about the Brotherhood and Israel. Reidel was the Egypt desk officer at the CIA when Mubarak came to power in 1981, and is an experienced observer of the Muslim world at Brookings. Reidel says if we want democracy in Egypt, the Muslim Brotherhood is going to be a big part of this, and we should be engaging and talking to them now. Hamid responds to a question about terrorism by pointing out that the Al Quaeda hates the Brotherhood and the Brotherhood hates Al Quaeda, that for counterterrorism engaging with the Brotherhood would be helpful to the US. On Israel, Hamid says years of accomodation to the real world has brought a knowledge that the Brotherhood has to live in the real world and the geopolitics of the Middle East. Carrie Wickham, a political scientist at Emory University, is author of "Mobilizing Islam," a 2002 book on Egypt and the Muslim Brotherhood. Carrie says it was analogous to evangelical Christians and their goal of sharing the word of God, but Banna also referred to Jihad as a struggle against colonialism and Zionism. Some leaders such as Sayyid Qutb, who was imprisoned by the Egyptian government and executed in 1966, advocated violent jihad, but after the 1970's the Brotherhoods formally renounced violence as a means of achieving power. In 1984 the Brotherhood reached another point in its evolution when it competed in parliamentary elections. And estimates of its actual support begin at about 20% of the electorate. Another development is the relative youthfulness of the April 6th and other movements in Egypt, where two thirds of the people are under 30 years age. The Muslim Brotherhood leaders are much older and hesitated to join the popular movement in its early stages. On the question of the Brotherhood's future evolution and winning a large role in a future government, Carrie says that a system of checks and balances has to be established to ensure that the Brotherhood operates as a democratic party committed to the democratic process. The Wall Street Journal in an editorial on February 4, 2011, emphasizes the need for institutional checks and balances. Carrie says rewriting the constitution and electoral process to ensure that this happens and no one party can take abslute control is crucial. ...

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The rally of about 1 million people in Berlin shows Germans are awakening to the need for vigilance in a democracy. Berliners and Germans were showing their awareness of Thomas Jefferson's words that eternal vigilance is the price of freedom. In the fragmented world of German politics where the main parties Social Democrats and Christian Democrats, the parties of Wily Brandt and Konrad Adenauer that built modern Germany command less than 20% support each, the need was never greater for a bulwark of freedom and free people in the center of Europe.

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National Portrait Gallery exhibition on "America's Presidents," opens May 15 after a month long closure during which the writing about each president was changed to take out comments from the culture wars in the description of each President. The format includes extracts from farewell addresses, basic resume of life, education, accomplishments. For the recent presidents history's assessment is not known so that descriptions cannot be authoritative. For the presidents from an earlier period there is a sense of authority. For instance the presidency of James K. Polk- “The presidency of James K. Polk reflected his belief in Manifest Destiny,” begins one summary. Another is "Andrew Jackson campaigned for president as a self-made man." Previous descriptions were filled with controversial statements which have been corrected. “Andrew Jackson’s life was colored by struggle, conflict, and aggression.” The Washington Post says it now drops the omniscient judgment it is making which has caused controversy and quotes Jackson giving his own self-analysis: “’I was born for a storm, and a calm does not suit me,’ Andrew Jackson reportedly told a friend. This kind of omniscient judgement is seen at the National Portrait Gallery on Woodrow Wilson. It said- “Wilson is most often remembered as a champion of liberal values, but recent scrutiny has drawn attention to his regressive actions with regard to women’s voting rights and segregation in the government, as well as other violations of civil rights.” Is this fair to Woodrow Wilson who laid some of the basic foundations -for what was to come later with the efforts of Franklin Roosevelt -in setting up the fair conditions for working men and women in the industries of the day, the essentials of the modern economy? New wall text says Wilson supported the 19th Amendment guaranteeing women the right to vote. But it could have said more as these presidents from George Washington and Jefferson,Lincoln to Teddy Roosevelt, Wilson, FDR, Truman, Kennedy/LBJ, laid the foundations of the modern society and economy we have today, and its democratic parliamentary process, industrial development, higher standard of living than the rest of the world. One such laggard is the entrance to the Smithsonian Exhibition in Washington DC where Benjamin Franklin's efforts and achievements do not receive the recognition and admiration of the Nation's future generations of young people, with statements of this kind including race relations. It is not stated that Ben Franklin was the President of the Pennsylvania Society for the Abolition of Slavery. And little is shown about the 6 difficult 6 week voyages across the Atlantic ocean to London and France that secured the support of France critical for Washington to win in the deciding battles of the War of Independence; and signing the peace settlement with Britain that set up this glorious experiment with democracy that is ours now for 250 years. The current zeal to see things only from today's lens puts everyone at risk from the founding fathers to the eminent writers of America. For instance the media tends to exalt contemporary writers and ignores the writers that set America apart for its uniqueness and being exceptional for much of its 250 years. Too much of this mistaken view only makes one miss the significance of 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, and what it means to the people of the world on different continents Asia, Africa and Latin America. Whitman and Longfellow are forgotten and were it not for some brave schools and teachers in public schools left out of the curriculum. Whitman has this to say about Longfellow- "Longfellow brings what is always dearest as poetry to the general human heart and taste, and probably must be so in the nature of things. He is certainly the sort of bard and counteractant most needed for our materialistic, self-assertive, money-worshipping, Anglo-Saxon races, and especially for the present age in America- an age tyrannically regulated with reference to the manufacturer, the merchant, the financier, the politician and the day workman- for whom and among whom he comes as the poet of melody, courtesy, deference- poet of the mellow twilight of the past in Italy, Germany, Spain, and in Northern Europe- poet of all sympathetic gentleness- and universal poet of women and young people. I should have to think long if I were ask'd to name the man who has done more, and in more valuable directions, for America." ...